


Clean

by JenSnow



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dream Bubbles, Gen, Gotta love our benevolent author, I love the tags here, Memories, Spoilers, does this count as angst?, kinda sad, my poor eribb, past canon character death, pretty short, what are tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 06:13:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8653849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenSnow/pseuds/JenSnow
Summary: In death Eridan gets a couple of things he's always wanted- a clean ocean and a couple minutes where he feels at peace with the world.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first fic so. Feel free to leave some constructive criticism or ideas for improvement.  
> (writing style, characters, povs, any random tips really)  
> Sorry it's so short, I'm not very good at draging things out while keeping it interesting.  
> Speaking of, I guess I'll let ya to it then! See ya  
> }(•^•){.

    A lone figure stood on the deck of a wrecked ship, a gentle breeze causing his long styled hair to sway lightly as he looked over the clean ocean.

    His gills fluttered slightly as a particularly cold gust of air blew by him, managing to worm its way under his warm scarf. He sighed, he deeply inhaled the new scent of crisp, clean air and remembered another ocean. An ocean polluted by people who couldn't care less about it, by trolls who lived on land; ones who carelessly threw their trash into his home, poisoning the lives of the others who lived below the ocean's waves. He could almost feel the unpleasant and faintly acidic feel of the toxic waters ghosting on his gills and eyes. Memories of tainted water flooding into his sensitive gills and of the ocean's foul spray slightly stinging his eyes which often caused him to feel sick to his stomach overtook him for a moment. 

    He thought about all that May live under these new, clean waves and wondered what his first love would say about them. If she would understand why he felt as if he had to do anything and everything that would make their home this beautiful and clean.

    The thought that she may never forgive him for the things he had done and the things he had wanted to do lingered in his mind.

    His fingertips ghosted over his abdomen. Wiping them on his pants he tried to rid his mind of the things he had done. He had had his reasons that he thought were acceptable. Nobody had ever seen them the way he saw them though. To him it seemed like the horrible things were necessary things he had to do in order to achieve his goals. 

    He even tried to be thoughtful of others most of the time.... at least for the big things.

    He remembered feeding his beloved morirail’s lusus, killing others' guardian and sentencing the freshly orphaned trolls to death. He did it so that she could live an easier life, to help with some of her burden. She was too kind for their cruel world, always believing there was a way to allow everyone live in peace together. Killing other trolls daily would have hurt her. Sure, he didn’t have to do it. He could have faked ineptitude and let her lusus wipe out all of the landwellers who dared pollute their home, but decided not to because it would make her sad. So, he continued to kill and orphan. Even though he knew he was superior to the disgusting low bloods who, as he had been taught all his life, were weak, filthy, disposable, and powerless. He didn't try to go out of his way to kill as many of the landwellers as he knew he could under the pretense of feeding her lusus. He joined up with another who was forced to kill others to feed their lusus. She would take the trolls and he their lusus. Two fed for the price of one pair. Food for her lusus was valuable regardless of its origins, so he would also took nautical animals, he didn't only target the landwellers's lusii. He could not afford to. Even though it went against all he had been told since he was hatched, even though showing even a little mercy went against his blood line and proud ancestry, he resisted the urge to eradicate the land dwellers. While he wanted to destroy those who were destroying his home he could not, he couldn't bring himself to hurt her in that way.

    But he knew he hurt her... greatly, in many ways. He had made her feel trapped, constantly trying to attract her attention for even the most minuscule issue. He would make mountains out of mole hills and ask her to listen as he complained about trivial things so that he would have an excuse to talk to her. She never really understood his real problems though, the ones that stemmed from land dwellers; and when he told her of the ways they could eradicate them, she became upset. When he tried to apologize, it was too late. She wanted to be freed from the stressful and tedious chore he forced upon her. In the end, his evolving feelings for her were spurned, his desperate plea for forgiveness and his acknowledgement of his discretions painfully ignored, and his existing relationship with her destroyed. His heart was broken because his own foolish actions and no apology could fix it.

He suddered as the cool air broke his concentration and studied the intricate wood work of the ship. Long before he was hatched, his great ancestor who had been the very embodiment of success had commanded this ship. He closed his eyes, thinking of all of the things he failed to do. He hadn’t carved a name for himself. Or won the empress’s favor. Or lived up to anything that was expected of a high blood. 

As hard as he tried to isolate himself from lowbloods, to separate himself from the filth, he was acquainted with a great many of them by troll standards. He was even on terms that were almost... friendly with a few. No respectable high blood would mingle with those below him for enjoyment.

He couldn’t even hold a quadrant to save his life, quite literally. He had no one to rely on. His morirailship went down in flames and all of his romantic advances were turned away. Even the one troll who had been willing to speak to him on friendly terms turned him away for something he hadn’t done yet.

He shook his head. He had at least done one thing that was expected of a high blood. He had snapped.

He hurt the people most precious to him, not just emotionally as he usually did, but physically as well. 

    He was trying to save them, at least in the beginning. He really was. The angels told him that they were hopeless. That they could not win... not against HIM. That they would all die if they continued to resist. No matter how many angels me killed they sang the same song of death.

    No one would listen when he tried to warn them, not even those whom he felt closest to. They still thought they could win against an unstoppable force.In the end he decided to show them how hopeless their struggle was. To join those who his friends fought against in an attempt to survive and show them they had no other option.

    In the end he blinded the one his beloved Feferi now loved and then destroyed her. She would never have listened, no matter how much he begged. Once she was set on something there was no stopping her... but he did. He shot her straight through her heart. The heart that crushed his. The heart that wanted to be free; from responsibility, from fate, from him. The sweet and kind heart that believed in change, that wanted to protect everyone. A hopeful heart in his hopeless world. One of the last hopes he destroyed.

    He had to finish it. He was the prince of hope, entitled to know when all hope was lost. He steeled himself and gripped his wand tighter as he made his way to the place where he would end it.

    He took aim and fired a white blast through the matriorb, the hope of their entire species. After that, he shot a blast of the white magic at the tall, elegant troll who protected it, a troll he had once thought worthy enough of sparing despite his genocidal conquest, searing a hole through her. Eyes filled with fury, the jadeblood who he had once been on good terms with; the one who had given him the very wand that had destroyed their hope killed him.

    The jagged edge of a chainsaw tore through him even as she bled from the hole he had burned through her.

    He lie on the cold surface of the meteor, in his hopeless world. There was no one to bring him back to life, no one to save him from his lonely fate. No one who he had reached out either to wouldn't or couldn't save him; leaving his cold, dead, broken body to the hands of a juggalo.

    Then he was in the dream bubbles. His eyes were pure white. He saw what could have been, who he could have been. He saw friends, enemies, and....relatives(?)..... He relived happier(?) days and talked to some for the fist time.

    In this new world he could see all of the things he hadn't seen, and all of the things he missed seeing while alive. He saw Feferi (while dead) free. He saw younger versions of himself happy with seahorse dad, playing in the land of make-believe and reading about the amazing feats that others had done before him, feats that he wished to outperform when he was old enough to do them.

    He finally got to see the ocean as he believed it was supposed to be. The waste from a toxic world washed clean. Shimmering waves and clean winds blowing salty spray on to his skin like soft kisses.

    As he bathed in the cool moonlight and let peace wash over him he felt as if he could let the tides of the ocean wash away his scars and carry him towards something more than the world he had left behind; a place where he could begin to hope for a better future.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this! It'd really make my day if you commented (especially with tips or criticism!)  
> I just wanted to write this because Eridan's always made out to be a heartless jerk. It still amazes me that he had the courage to follow through with what he believed to be the right thing even though it meant having to do a lot of things that he knew would make them hate him in the end. I personally don't think I could have done that at 13, especially since he didn't really have any accessible support.  
> anyways.... THANK YOU!!!
> 
> Requests are greatly appreciated. My Tumblr is Trash-7, if you wanna message me a request or just chat in general feel free.  
> HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY!!!  
> -JenSnow. }(•~•){


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